JAXA identified the root cause of its December 2025 H3 rocket mission failure: improper adhesive bonding in a payload support component due to elevated manufacturing temperatures. The weakened adhesive caused component delamination when the fairing opened, resulting in unexpected satellite movement that ruptured a fuel line to the second stage. JAXA plans to revise manufacturing processes and potentially redesign the H3 to prevent recurrence.
Infrastructure
Japanese rocket part came unglued, leading to mission failure
Improper adhesive bonding in JAXA's H3 payload support component caused December 2025 mission failure when manufacturing defects led to delamination and ruptured the second stage fuel line.
Tuesday, April 14, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: The RegisterBY sys://pipeline
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